Another Journalist Gone: Rogelio Barragán Perez Found Murdered

Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: LaVoz y Aristegui y Infoabe

Rogelio Barragán , director of the digital medium Guerrero al Instante , was murdered on Tuesday , after being deprived of his freedom on Monday; His body was found in Zacatepec, Morelos.

The body of Barragán was located on Tuesday inside a grey Jetta abandoned in the corner of the street March 21 and Circunvalación, Benito Juárez neighborhood, municipality of Zacatepec.

Municipal police delimited the area in which the agents of the Prosecutor's Office of Morelos arrived , and personnel of the expert services to take the body and everything that is the subject of investigation.

The Instant Facebook account of Guerrero confirmed the murder of Rogelio Barragán , but did not publish more information about it.

The journalist of the Guerrero al Instante portal , Rogelio Barragán , was found dead inside the trunk of a vehicle with several "blunt injuries on his face and a head injury ," the Prosecutor of the State of Guerrero reported.

According to the authorities, the body of the portal director was found  inside a gray Jetta car at about 6:20 p.m. on Tuesday, July 30, when elements of the General Coordination of Expert Services went to Circunvalación Street , in the Benito Juárez neighborhood of the municipality of Zacatepec .

According to local media reports , the reporter was found beaten, tortured and shot in the head.

Municipal police cordoned off the scene of the incident while the staff of the Prosecutor's Office of Morelos arrived, and the expert services to examine the body and collect data for investigation.

 "Another journalist killed in Mexico, Rogelio Barragán. Mexico, in this 2019 , is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to practice journalism," said the renowned journalist Jorge Ramos.

 The death of Barragán filled with messages of support and condolences the page of Guerrero to the Instant, a digital medium that has more than 110,000 followers on Facebook.

The State Prosecutor's Office reported that the victim's mother was the one who had recognized Rogelio's body , who died at 47 years of age. In addition, the news portal lamented his death with a message through his Facebook profile: "God have you in his holy glory, a big hug to heaven."

According to reports from neighbors in the area , the car had been abandoned since one night before the discovery , however, they made the report to the authorities until the afternoon of July 30.

The car was abandoned the night before, but the neighbors reported it until the following afternoon. (Photo: Twitter)

"He had more than 10 years of journalistic work, especially the red notes ," the representative of the organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Balbina Flores said to the AFP agency . He also noted that Barragán's profile was the one reporter who "faced risks."

"We will continue to investigate further to be certain about whether his murder had to do with his work" at the head of the news portal, Balbina said. And it is that during the current administration , which began on December 1, 2018, the murder of more than ten communicators in Mexico has been counted , all of them in possible relationship with their journalistic board.

"It has been a terribly disastrous year for press freedom. We hoped that this situation would not continue as far as this administration goes, but we have seen that it has not been this way, this has receded, " Balbina concluded.

Other representative cases so far this year are that of Norma Sarabia , a reporter for the newspaper Tabasco Hoy , where she worked as a correspondent for more than 20 years, and who at 46 was shot outside her home located in Huimanguillo, the biggest municipality in the state.

The first homicide carried out by the López Obrador administration was that of Alejandro Márquez , owner and reporter of the Information Orion , whose body was found lifeless on the Tepic-Pantanal highway in Nayarit on December 1.

The second journalist killed in the 4T was Diego García , on December 6. The 35-year-old reporter was killed while driving in his car in the municipality of Ecatepec, State of Mexico . According to testimonies, the journalist was intercepted by armed men in the Jardines de Morelos neighborhood.

On the same day of the death of Diego García, the spokesman for the presidency, Jesús Ramírez Cuevas , published on his Twitter account that the government was already working on a plan for prevention, protection, access to justice and repair of damage that he gave guarantees to journalists . However, homicides continued to occur .

A month later, on January 20, the body of journalist Rafael Murúa was found in Baja California Sur and thus the number of murders was inaugurated during 2019. Murúa was director of the Radiokashana community radio and since 2017 he had received threats from the Mayor of the municipality of Mulegé.

Journalists in Mexico have protested against the situation they live and suffer when doing their job.  (Photo: Nacho Ruiz / Cuartoscuro)

Shortly after swearing in on December 1, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he would put an end to homicides against journalists, but the situation for communication professionals has not changed.

According to the organization in defense of freedom of expression , Article 19 , since 2000 to date 128 murders have been documented against Mexican journalists , all of them in possible relation to their journalistic work. Of the total, 118 are men, while 10 are women.